Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures

It's been a long, strange trip for the personal computer over 30 years. Ars …

The rise of the PC (1987-1990)

In 1985, Bill Gates wrote an amazing memo to Apple management. In the memo, he praised the Macintosh for its innovative design, but noted that it had failed to become a standard, like the IBM PC was becoming. He correctly deduced that it was the advent of inexpensive, 100%-compatible clone computers that was propelling the PC ahead, and that any defects in the design of the computer would eventually be remedied by the combined force of the many companies selling PCs and PC add-on products, such as new graphics cards. He proposed a plan, which Microsoft would help bring to fruition, whereby Apple would license their operating system and hardware design to a number of other computer companies. Microsoft had been an early supporter and promoter of the Macintosh, but Gates feared that without compatible machines, it would fail to become a "second standard."

Apple management ignored the memo, and decided to concentrate instead on making better computers themselves. The Macintosh II, introduced in 1987 for US$5,500, eschewed the original's all-in-one design in favor of a standard desktop chassis that supported add-in cards, and could be connected to a color monitor. Professional users loved it, although the price kept it out of the hands of most buyers.

The Macintosh II. Users could add their own video cards using the NuBus
slots

Commodore finally introduced the more-powerful and -expandable Amiga 2000 (US$1495) and the cheaper Amiga 500 (US$595) with integrated keyboard, in 1987. The latter was expected to take over the Commodore 64's place as a cheap yet powerful home computer for the masses, and sales rose, peaking at over 1 million units in 1991.

Top: Amiga 2000. Bottom: Amiga 500

Meanwhile, the Atari ST's momentum tailed off, with sales slowly declining as better games started coming out designed specifically for the Amiga 500. Atari did not release any new models of the ST except for a version with extra RAM preinstalled. Thanks to the inclusion of a MIDI port with every model, however, the ST became the computer of choice for digital musicians.

But the real winner of this era was the IBM PC platform. Sales kept increasing, and by 1990 PCs and clone sales had more than tripled to over 16 million a year, leaving all of its competitors behind. The platform went from a 55 market share in 1986 to an 84% share in 1990. The Macintosh stabilized at about 6% market share and the Amiga and Atari ST at around 3% each.

Bill Gates' predictions were coming true, as new, inexpensive graphics cards that cloned the new IBM VGA standard were starting to make the PC a credible game platform. In 1990, Origin released the first Wing Commander game. Its 256-color, scaled, and rotated bitmaps gave the illusion of 3D and made existing 2D space shooters on other computers, game consoles and arcades seem instantly outdated and quaint by comparison. 3D came to role playing games with Ultima Underworld in 1992 and fast-action first-person shooters with Wolfenstein 3D the same year. Now it was the PC that was setting the standard for new games, instead of the Amiga.